When Rappa's past unfolded before the audience, everyone was left somewhat bewildered.
On the screen, Rappa was walking through a facility filled with high-tech equipment.
Along the way, she didn't encounter any researchers in white coats.
So this… is the Shinobi Capitol?
After walking for a long stretch, Rappa finally arrived at her destination.
Inside an office, a bearded middle-aged man was speaking with a female colleague, also a researcher.
"Salutations, Master Kucha. I have... deciphered the enchantment."
Rappa spoke, her tone calm and polite.
The bearded man's eyes widened in shock, stammering: "Wh-What ...? It's not even two system hours..."
That voice, There's no mistaking it. It belonged to that abstract Master Kucha.
...
: Whoa, what's with this sudden art style change? I thought it'd be a ninja village!
: Wait, wasn't Master Kucha supposed to be the one with the lantern mask in Rappa's mind?
: I thought he'd be a total abstract goofball!
: Why's he suddenly a smart middle-aged uncle now?
: Is this some weird childhood filter?
: Rappa's got memes, that's for sure...
: But this is just strange. And the way Rappa's speaking now, so flat, emotionless.
: I have a bad feeling about this.
: Don't tell me there's going to be another knife scene?!
...
Rappa looked at Master Kucha, waiting for him to speak.
"Ahem!"
Master Kucha coughed and lowered his voice."O child new to the way of the ninja, I recognize your determination. Henceforth, you shall be the successor to my Dazzling Ninjutsu."
His deliberately solemn tone contrasted ridiculously with his researcher uniform.
Yet, Rappa truly respected him from the bottom of her heart.
The camera gave a close-up of Rappa's face.
That delicate face showed no emotion, her eyes dull, lifeless.
Only upon hearing Kucha's praise did a faint spark of light flicker within them.
She was nothing like the lively, silly Rappa the audience knew.
It made people… feel an inexplicable sense of sorrow.
Then, Master Kucha recited the Ninja Inscription before her, as if playing make-believe, giving Rappa a goal,
To become a ninja hero, to punish evil and uphold justice.
To strengthen this belief, he even gave her a grand, formal-sounding mission.
But it was then, the audience learned that before receiving the name "Rappa," the name in her mind was merely an experiment code: AK-A-3.
"I don't know, my disciple. Your name will carry your ideals, your convictions, and your destiny. Your ninja name belongs to you alone."
"So, the decision is yours to make."
"In that case... I choose Rappa. To have a dedicated heart that will never be disturbed, and to pacify all evil and demonstrate justice... that was Master's initial teachings to me. I wish to use them in my name."
The familiar line, spoken once again by Kucha and Rappa,
It suddenly reminded the audience of the very first scene.
They remembered that time, when the abstract Kucha and Rappa had been dead serious while spouting those chūnibyō lines,
Everyone had laughed, the chat filled with jokes and memes.
But the Rappa shown in these memory fragments, her words were strong, spirited, full of energy.
Completely unlike how she was now. And that experiment code… exposed the truth of her identity before everyone's eyes.
...
: This Rappa… feels like a stranger.
: Her eyes are so lifeless. She's not the same Rappa we know!
: She looks like a doll.
: So Rappa was an experiment subject!!
: I suddenly feel so bad for her…
: My knife-sense is tingling hard. Everyone, brace yourselves…
: Incoming knife scene ahead.
...
Before the audience could think further, Master Kucha nodded heavily.
"As you wish! Nice to meet you, Dazzling Initiate AKA Rappa! You will now embark on an arduous training to become a ninja. Can you keep up?"
"Certainly. Pain is but common to a ninja and I shall never flinch in the face of it."
When faced with challenge, her emotionless voice carried a faint trace of resolve.
Then, without any warning, the next scene showed, in the coldest and most direct way, what Rappa's so-called "training" truly was.
She was forced to take drugs by those who had lost nearly all sanity, mere slaves of the laboratory.
Rappa believed those people to be "Fiendlings," yet they were actually subordinates under Kucha's own research division.
So Rappa obediently took the medicine.
That murky substance was a genetic modification drug developed by the research lab,
Its purpose: to forcibly evolve humans. But the mortality rate was extremely high.
Every dose brought unbearable pain.
Rappa was no exception. Though not an ordinary person, after taking the drug, she'd collapse, clutching her stomach, curling on the floor, trembling,
Grinding her teeth, enduring the agony.
The only belief keeping her going was that childish mantra:
"However, to become a Ninja Hero, I must consume these pills every day ... Only then can I create a never-ending source of Cosmic Ninja Strength within my body. Yes, this is a trial to temper my mind and body."
"Osu! Having persevered through unending nights of tribulations, I will boast ... the impenetrable body of a Ninja Hero."
After she took the medicine, even the one diving into her memories, Stelle, could feel the pain so vividly that she almost lost the connection.
Rappa, voice trembling, tearful, kept muttering those lines to encourage herself,
Even though the audience had braced for it, their hearts still clenched under the weight of it.
...
: This is Rappa's training?! This is human experimentation!!!
: Nooo!!!
: She's shaking in pain and still reciting those silly lines to stay strong…
: So behind Rappa's chūnibyō act was this kind of suffering?!
: My heart's breaking, actually breaking!
: I can't stand hearing her voice like that!
: Those lines sound so desperate now…
: It must hurt so much! Even Stelle reacted so strongly!
...
Rappa had always left a strong impression on the audience,
Especially with her over-the-top chūnibyō mannerisms.
But now, seeing the truth behind it, ti was like hearing a joke suddenly turn into a scream.
Silent, yet devastating. Still, the story moved forward coldly.
That female colleague who had been speaking with Kucha earlier appeared again.
She was known as the "Umbra Headmistress", the lead researcher of the lab.
And in Rappa's eyes, the Umbra Headmistress was the head of a dojo and a reliable supportive figure for people like her.
"She uses the Great Narukami Circle to awaken the latent potential of ninjas. After attaining enlightenment via reverse lightning ninjutsu, one's body can then possess extraordinary ninja senses."
That's how Rappa explained it to herself.
But the truth was... Umbra Headmistress mainly fitted her with an electric shock collar designed to forcibly stimulate latent potential.
"No. 3, I am about to increase the intensity. You better be able to handle it. The future of this laboratory is all in your hands."
The Umbra Headmistress wasn't gentle like Master Kucha; her words were sharp and cold.
Yet Rappa didn't mind. "Yes, that is the plan ... The future of the Ninja Capital shall be shaped by the Dazzling Ninja Hero. I will definitely fulfill my promise."
And so...
In a storm of electricity, Rappa endured unbearable agony.
The collar discharged violent currents that pierced her flesh like a thousand needles. In her ears rang countless sounds, whispers, screams, even hallucinations.
"This... this is..."
"Too much!"
Stelle from her memories could feel the pain through the blood connection.
To uncover those memories, she had to personally experience everything Rappa went through, including this torment.
Fortunately, Stelle also gave the audience a frame of reference, showing them just how terrifying Rappa's suffering truly was.
The comment section, once lively, began to fall silent.
The viewers' hearts ached unbearably.
The cruel experiment filled them with sorrow and disgust.
And seeing Rappa, despite it all, still reciting her "Ninja words" in delusional, dramatic words to hold onto her faith, it broke them even more.
Because compared to that agony, those words of conviction felt so painfully naive.
Yet Rappa persisted. The memories flowed rapidly.
Medication, electric shocks...
And battles against other test subjects. Though she was beaten half to death every time, she kept growing stronger under the weight of her suffering.
That was Rappa's daily life, mixed with a few rare moments of peace.
During those moments, she would quietly sit and read a manga, Cosmic Ninjutsu Inscriptions.
When the camera lingered on the book's title, the absurd, comical memories from before overlapped with Rappa's current torment in the audience's minds... and struck them like a heavy hammer to the heart.
But it didn't end there.
After Rappa defeated even those once-invincible opponents, the director increased her training intensity once again.
In the research chamber, Umbra Headmistress was speaking with Master Kucha.
Their words were direct, about test subjects, experimental goals, and training results.
By coincidence, Rappa's newly developed enhanced hearing let her catch every detail.
But contrary to what the audience expected, Rappa didn't rebel upon hearing the truth.
She merely lowered her head and thought to herself, 'My superhearing has improved so much... how impressive.'
This unexpected reaction left the audience stunned.
And then came Master Kucha's shocking revelation:
"Denisovan 22, we need to increase No. 3's mental resilience."
"She might not be able to withstand the later experiments. If we use the memetic virus to perform cognitive intervention and ensure that her mind remains stable, the experiments can proceed more smoothly."
So... At that time, Rappa didn't even have a memetic virus.
She had known the truth all along!
...
: So you're saying Rappa was fully conscious the whole time?!
: No way! Why?!
: She wasn't brainwashed , then why did she keep obeying them?!
: She knew it was false, yet she still chose to believe?!
: I don't get it!
...
The audience was left speechless, their minds filled with disbelief.
On screen, the Umbra Headmistress director scoffed at Kucha's proposal, though she hesitated. Stabilizing Rappa's mind would indeed help the experiments.
But before agreeing, she warned coldly, "Fine, but make sure not to bring your personal feelings into this. The Research Apes aren't exactly happy about how you are allowing No. 3 to run around at will."
Master Kucha gave a bitter smile. "She's able to decipher the password to the modification cabin in just two system hours. There's no way we'll be able to cage her up like any old gorilla ..."
From afar, Rappa heard this conversation and whispered to herself, only loud enough for her own ears: "Do not be troubled over me, Master. Mere physical suffering can never devastate my ninja spirit."
Soon after, Umbra Headmistress and Kucha found Rappa and conducted the memetic implantation procedure.
The operation was a success.
But the final product... was the worldview of a ninja and the Ninja Capitol itself.
According to Umbra Headmistress's plan, Rappa should have received the same "Slumbernana" meme as the others, something to dull the mind.
But Kucha confessed the truth.
"Cosmic Ninjutsu Inscriptions!"
He even crossed his arms in a dramatic pose, quoting a line from the manga:""In order to protect the helpless weak and save the fallen Ninja Capital, the righteous Ninja Hero hunts down the world's Evil Ninjas!""
Seeing Umbra Headmistress's murderous glare, he quickly straightened and explained, "... It's a manga series. After we sealed off the research institute to hide from the Galaxy Rangers, my manga collection has been her only source of entertainment."
The explanation nearly made Umbra Headmistress explode.
"You'd better be careful not to go overboard with giving her such useless information. There's only one horizontal axis on Erudition's coordinate system. Everything else is an impediment to progress."
"That's especially true for the banal concepts of good and evil ... Haven't the Galaxy Rangers given us enough trouble already?"
"You'll never get the Doctor to notice you if you keep being so narrow-minded."
After spitting those words, she tuned her head staring at Rappa in the cabin.
Kucha stood motionless, staring after her and murmured softly,"Is that so? Would Doctor... really notice ordinary mortals like us?"
All of this was seen by Rappa, who had just awakened from the implantation chamber.
"I must never let Master Kucha down," she whispered in her heart.
And thus, the audience's confusion found its answer, one that filled them with quiet awe and sorrow.
The reason this child stayed... was so painfully pure.
It broke their hearts.
Love is a remedy, and kindness a medicine.
And Rappa possessed that kindness.
She knew the truth, yet didn't rebel, because she wanted to ease Master Kucha's pain.
Kucha still had remnants of conscience, though he'd never admit it. He truly saw Rappa as a child... or perhaps, a disciple.
Just like the bond between master and student in Cosmic Ninjutsu Inscriptions... Rappa didn't want to disappoint her master.
And that pure, untainted kindness of Rappa's pierced straight through the audience's hearts.